Friday, June 14, 2013

Last Saturday the Marlins and Mets played 20 innings and the Blue Jays and Rangers played 18. I found myself wondering how often two games on the same day had each gone so many innings. I began researching and was fairly quickly able to find an answer to that question*, but (as is often the case for me) then I found myself wondering about other extra-inning game tidbits. Suddenly I was immersed in hours and hours of research. One thing I discovered while working my way through the mountain of data I wanted to go through: 2013 is on pace to have more extra-inning games than any season in MLB history.

Monday, June 3, 2013

A Maddux requires that a pitcher go the distance, throw fewer than 100 pitches, and not allow any runs. Because pitch count records from earlier are scarce, 1988 is the start of the Maddux-era for MLB. Since then there have been 269 Madduxes. There have also been 1,844 shutouts in which the pitcher threw 100+ pitches and there have been 265 complete games in which a starter threw fewer than 100 pitches, but allowed at least one run. (Cliff Lee once pitched a complete game on 95 pitches while allowing six runs.) In 18 of those 265 games though, the runs allowed were unearned. Those games do not qualify as Madduxes, but they deserve mention.

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A Little Info About Me

I've been a huge baseball fan since I got my first mitt at the age of five. Like any good blogger, my earliest writing came from inside my parents' basement, where at the age of seven I put together newspaper articles to cover the games I played with my vast collection of baseball cards. I love going to games at whatever stadium I find myself near, and can often be found staying up way later than I ought to, watching the end of a late game from the west coast. I also teach elementary school, run a lot of miles, see a lot of movies, and daydream about being Han Solo. I can be reached at jasonlukehart@gmail.com